The Dragons in Eureka 1 : Repayment or Revenge
by Andysaurus
Summary: Nathan Stark is arrogant and conceited enough to believe that The End justifies The Means. However stealing from Dragons is never a good idea, whether it's gold or scientific intellectual property. And ignoring their warnings is even worse. Will Stark never be told ? This involves an alternative time line. Some lines modified from works by A. C. Clark and words by The Crocodile.
1. Arrival

Finally, he had reached Eureka's town limit. As Rex Dracos drove towards the town he could feel something in the ether, something strange, energising, and semi sentient; it was The Artefacts Omega field. At this range it was too weak for him to tap, because of its particular non zero falloff factor. It was just a distraction; he needed to concentrate on his bike and its heavily laden trailer.

They didn't really need to blackmail Stark into providing them with key components to get Omega Field generators working at Portland and their home The Peak District, but they would be a lot safer with them, and they would not have to rely on the breaking of The Dark Curse and the hope that an Omega field transmitted by portal from Lake Nostos could somehow be activated in Storybrooke.

Reaching the town, Rex made enquiries for the local watering holes. The main restaurant was the only restaurant so it would have to do. The owner was mildly curious, Rex recognised that while the man had an oafish demeanour, he was part of the lamentably inadequate security system and needed to be treated with caution. Rex told him that he was camping and his bike was acting up. The owner gave Rex some useful, but minimal and too the point, advice about the town's amenities.

Rex checked into the local and only boarding house. The lady in charge seemed quite pleasant, but Rex instantly detected that it was an act. This woman was no coercer, but she had suboperant talent which she was using instinctively, and not because she was a shrink. He would have to be on his guard. Obviously she was part of the Eureka security system, which made sense.

After leaving the bike at Henry's garage, having as a powerful Creator, demonstrated a convincing set of faults, Rex went to explore the town. Although at this distance the strength of the Omega field was weak, it was still strong enough to allow Rex to permanently inhibit the bike and keep Henry occupied with fruitless repair work. He he he.

That evening Rex returned to the boarding house. He had managed to avoid a confrontation with Sheriff Carter, but not that she wolf, Lupo. However, a combination of coercion combined with reverse redaction had given her more to think about that having the temerity to grill Him. Lupo would be some time at the Jake's. He could use invisibility to prevent undesirable encounters, but it was draining. He needed to take advantage of the Omega Field and practice what Dad had told them about generating an applied School of Coercian spell, a minor Spell of Confusion.

Rex decided to check the public rooms for surveillance equipment but his farsense could sense nothing. But when Rex went into the sitting room everything changed. Rex sensed something cold and dark, Murder Most Foul! Or was it Murder by Death? It took Rex a while to concentrate, at this range the artefacts weak Omega field was barely able to compliment his own dragon psi ability, but eventually The Pattern Of The Past revealed itself, although it took a while for him to glean all the key details. That nice shrink was anything but. So, which crook, corporation or government was she working for? Time to phone Dad.

After a week of eavesdropping, farsensing and covert computer hacking from his laptop with the aid of some rather special information gathering worms that needed to be used from within the Eureka Internet, Rex was ready to act. Approaching Stark in Global Dynamics was unnecessarily dangerous, even with the full power of The Artefact's Omega field to draw on, and the practice he had been getting at generating the Spell of Avoidance. There was an easier way.


	2. Blackmail

Sheriff Carter had just got home after the usual tiring day at the office, when Allison arrived asking why he had phoned her to come. Then Zoe arrived screaming in her most annoying manner, why had he phoned her to meet her at the restaurant. Then SARAH chimed in to say that the visitor from Dracos Electronics was now ready to see Carter and Allison.

Carter was speechless. What the *** was going on?

Allison had heard of Dracos Electronics, an elusive concern that supplied the US military with select high performance miniaturised computer components. They were said to reach for their lawyers at the slightest excuse.

Carter felt something behind him and on turning round saw Rex sitting in a chair. How The Hell !

Having lowered the Spell Of Mental Confusion and thus making himself visible, Rex waited while the other three blew of a lot of steam and hot air. "Sit!" snarled Rex. Using coercion or its derivative, a Spell of Domination, on Carter was not going to be easy, Carter was intelligent, strong willed, and logical; unlike his emotionally compromised over intelligent daughter, he was not easy to fool or distract. Rex stood and held up three tablets. "For the past eight years Nathan Stark has been using components we supplied to Harvard University solely for research, for Military purposes in Area 5. This is illegal. Stark has also infringed our patents, duplicated our designs, and reverse engineered our software. And committed intellectual property theft. Copies of the relevant documents are in the dirt folders of these tablets along with the original locations of the documents so you can verify this".

Rex continued with the briefest of pauses "Also in the dirt folders are various things that Stark would not like to be known, though the Russians, Chinese, various corporations and criminal organisations such as The Royal Houses know something of the projects through their extensive espionage networks and various corrupt officials, like that Senator who, as a bribe, was allowed to activated The Artefact, and the person who murdered Dr Perkins wife, to shut her mouth. Stark will be compared favourably to The Dr Joseph Mengle if word of his human so called experiments reaches the US congress, never mind the abominable mind experiments being done on Chimpanzees and the financial irregularities required to fund Eureka and Global Dynamics". Making Stark responsible for the human experimentation might be going a bit far, but once the rumour mills got going ...

Pausing for effect Rex continued "The choice is yours, or rather Stark's, make recompense for what Global Dynamics has stolen from us, or we start proceedings. And we will not play fair. When Stark tried to kill Carlson after The Artefact began his Ascension, Stark showed how ruthless he is". That was probably unfair given how trigger happy Stark's hired killers were, but the accusation would serve Rex well. "You will find designs for three sets of equipment which we require building. Each set consists of two exotic matter lenses and four quantum mirrors. Global Dynamics can easily create these although we will supply the room and high temperature superconductors needed, the Global Dynamics ones are not robust enough". Rex pointed to two boxes on the floor and then lifted them onto the coffee table. He could have levitated them, but unlike Leo, his telekinesis was not up to much. Anyway, perhaps better not scare the children and the horses, yet.

Both Carter and Allison attempted to speak, but Rex mind clamped them. Rex then creatively generated an image of the devices before them. They would assume some holographic technology was involved. He continued "Despite what Stark will say, these are not theoretical designs. However, they are incomplete because we could not get access to the original working devices". Dad had said that they were in The Lost City Of The Ancients before the Gold Dragons with the help of some Daedroths had hidden them, although simple exotic matter lenses were standard jump engine and warp drive components, while quantum mirrors where used for some teleport systems, "We will perform the final calibrations in our laboratories".

Turning to leave, Rex sent out a parting shot to cover his trail "Stark should never have activated The Artefact. Hope that the fool never manages to tap it's power or link to it's mind. Mad physicists like him can only ruin this world, Paraphysicists can spread havoc to the stars, and that will not be tolerated by The Watchers of The Ancients". The Ancients were a motley collection of high tech, psychicly operant or ascended races, who still watched over the planet of their birth 40,000 years ago, before the last Ice Age.

As Carter and Allison struggled to put their brains into gear, Rex thought of something else to say, another self interested warning "Now that The Artefact is awake, you should beware what it may attract, or summon to its aid".


	3. The Dark One cometh

A few years later Stark decided to probe the Artefact, again. Allison had insisted that it's vault be sealed, but Stark had made sure that that the vault could still be opened. Since she was away on maternity leave with Carter's new brat, Stark had decided to try and give The Artefact a few experimental pokes.

Everything was going well when the inside of the shielded vault was suddenly obscured by a deep red gas, "Fargo, what do you read, what the hell is that gas?" Stark shouted down the microphone.

"What gas?" Fargo shouted back. "There's nothing showing on the monitors, but there's a massive rise in the exotic particle count, a huge fluctuating emp surge and massive magnetic activity. At these levels the field fluctuations could have a serious effect on the systems. It could even interfere with our visual pigments at the quantum or nervous level". Then Fargo shouted "What the hell's that !".

Stark looked out. All he could see was the red gas swirling. Then the gas vanished. There was a man. Man? A hideous figure clad in ... crocodile leather?

The man walked forward to the vault door, and gestured. The door inexplicably opened and the man walked through into the corridor. Stark shouted to the techs to get the door closed again. By the time that they had done that the man was in the room facing Stark and the technicians. Fargo was watching from control, having had the presence of mind to call security.

"I am the Dark One. Why have I been summoned here. You'd better hope that it's worth my time". The voice was unpleasant and sinister.

Stark had a gut feeling that a call to that unpleasant, and creepy, Dr Dracos was needed.


End file.
